Minoo Emami's war gallery

The second link on my side bar is to the website of the Iranian artist Minoo Emami. Minoo lives and works in Tehran. She is a highly regarded artist who has exhibited extensively both in Iran and abroad.


It is her war art that particularly impresses me. The paintings and collages are deeply personal images, inspired by her husband's experiences during the Iran-Iraq war, an eight year long conflict started by Saddam Hussein which cost over one million lives. Her husband was an officer in the Iranian Armyand lost a leg during the conflict. Like Simin Behbahani's poem the necklace the images of false limbs and combat fatigues are in their own way as damning an indictment of war as the poetry of Wilfred Owen.



Minoo reminds us of that we should not just dwell on what is produced by American or European artists. There is an enormous wealth of talent elsewhere in the world. Although I have not met Minoo I was delighted to be able to meet fellow Iranian artist Elahe Heidari in Paris in May. I was also fortunate to meet other extremely talented Iranian artists Shiva Sanjari, Negareh Ayatollahi and Nasila Moghadan in Paris too.